Back after a long hiatus

[Danny in Houston]

Hello folks.

It's been a while since I've been here.  I'm finally setting up my shop again.  I'll be spending a year working full time in the shop to see if I can at least make a small profit doing something I love.  At the end of a year I will evaluate whether I need to get back into engineering consulting for my income.  

I'm semi-retired, but at age 57 I still need supplemental income for a few years before I start tapping into my IRA account.   

So I leased a shop space at the Houston Foundry, 1,800 sq ft located 10 minutes from my house in the Houston Heights, where other makers also lease shop space.  There is another woodworker, a metal worker,  glass worker, and others.  The location is owned by a large specialty metal fabrication shop, so there's lot's of craftsmen on location.

Making a profit in wood (and metal) is extremely difficult, but's it's been a dream of mine for a long time, so here we go.  This will actually be like a one year vacation for me, waking up every day and just enjoying my passion.  

I still see a few folks here from when I was more active in the past.  I look forward to interacting with everyone as I take this journey.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Welcome back, Danny, and good luck with your new venture. My advice is to pay attention to product design and marketing if you want to be successful. In fact, I would spend at least 50% of my time in those areas. Setting up the shop and sharpening the tools is fun but it is customers who will drive your business. Once you find out who they are and what they want, you will be a busy man. Then you can buy more tools and have more fun.

Keep us updated on your progress and remember that we LOVE pictures.

[Arlin Eastman]

Hi Danny

Great to hear from you and so glad you are doing something you love.  You will have to take pictures of the place for us.

[Bibliophile 13]

Glad to see you back!

If you do manage to make money in your shop, I guarantee that it will leave you precious little time for reading internet forums. So while I hope to see you posting here regularly, I also hope that the shop keeps you busy enough that you're not here TOO regularly. If that makes any sense at all.

[Harold O.]

My shop opened six years ago. Situation similar to yours.

I am next to a guitar store and get a regular flow of people passing by. Most of my noisy work is done before music lessons start (sound 3PM) so we are reasonable neighbors. They have me make speaker boxes, pedal boards, and display racks for them. Just enough to keep the blades turning.

My daughter made a Facebook page for the shop last summer. She has insisted I make weekly updates. #WoodShopWednesday keeps me on my toes. More than that, people have been finding me because of the web presence. I get requests for basic furniture repairs, book case builds, and the random custom piece. Nothing fancy but it keeps the doors open and builds both work habits and skill set.

Most wood guys in my area of Los Angeles started out small then resorted to building cabinets to make ends meet. I don't make kitchen cabinets and refuse to work inside other people's houses.

That online Facebook page is how people learn about the shop. I keep the "friends" noise at zero and just make regular Wednesday posts of that week's project. Better to be in the shop than on the computer. But people need to know you are out there. Get some business cards made and hand them out at the grocery store, to the jobs counter guy at Lower, to your barber, and the tire shop guy. Folks need the service you provide, but they first need to know you are there. Woodshopery is a local activity. Self promotion is a wonderful thing.

Good for you getting out there.

[Dave Diaman]

Danny, Good luck on your new venture. I started building furniture full time almost ten years ago and it seems like just last year. While I am still many years from retirement the time has flown. As Steve said don’t expect to have a lot of time to post on forums if you plan to make a good living and be ready for long days. I don’t think I have worked anything less than an 80 hour week in the last 10 years and if I did it was because I was so sick I couldn’t get out of bed. One thing I will caution you on that really hurt me in the beginning. My passion is in period furniture. In the beginning I was lucky to get a whole lot of work really fast. I did this through trade shows and building pieces on spec that showed my abilities. Most of the time the spec pieces would sell at the shows but even if they didn’t they still generated a lot of work. Even with all the period furniture work I had coming in I was reluctant to turn down work that I wasn’t real excited about. Mainly contemporary furniture. About two years into my business I found I was dreading going into the shop to work and was very unproductive when I did. This happened every time I worked on a contemporary piece or something like cabinetry. After that I made a conscious decision to stop taking anything that I knew my heart would not be in. It wasn’t only doing a disservice to myself but to my customer also. If my hart isn’t in building a piece it simply will not be as good as I can make it. I realize early on you may need to take what you can get and that is just the nature of the beast. I guess my point is to figure out what really makes you happy to work on and you can pour your heart into. Turning your love into a painful chore is no way to live. Once you figure out what you want to build you need to go get the work. It will not just come to you. I spent a good solid year marketing and working part time before I ever started building furniture full time. By the time I started working full time I already had a good loyal customer base and almost a two year backlog. If you do good work and treat your customers well the work will come. Now the only advertising I do is one trade show a year and I have maintained a 12-18 month back log for at least the last 8 years. Once again good luck. As someone has already stated it isn’t work if you are doing what you love.

[Danny in Houston]

Thanks everyone.  Appreciate the support.  Looks like I will be fighting against my engineering consulting practice for time in the shop, but the engineering work is fun and pays very nicely.  I have copied my reply from the woodworking forum (sorry for the double, I'll stop after this one)

From the WW forum:

Yeah we are selling our vacation house in the Hill Country, moving my shop to a leased space near our house in the Heights.   Our kids are near graduation (we had three nearby in Austin and San Marcos) and we have grown tired of the 3 hour drive and associated headaches of maintaining two houses.  I'm doing some engineering consulting work occasionally, and then will be spending lots of quality time in my new shop.  

This is my dining table I made a couple of years ago, seems to be poplar with folks here in Houston, and pretty easy to manufacture.  I'm hoping to do the metal work myself also.  

The local economy is booming again here, and as long as you can market the stuff as reclaimed / salvaged lumber, people will pay lots of money for beautiful furniture. My main slab supplier (Swift River near San Marcos) only uses trees that have been felled naturally (flood etc).  

This slab is live oak, a very under rated species in my opinion.  It's extremely hard with a beautiful grain.  


Here's the shop space, the landlord is clearing out the structure, it will be a clear floor in a few days.  1800 sq ft, 220 hookup, wifi, monitored alarm, lots of other artists under the same roof.  I'm already thinking I will wall off a small area near the window for the natural light, then locate my bench and hand tools inside, and install AC for hand tool work.   The building is not air conditioned, but with high ceilings it has not seemed to be extremely hot yet with 85 degree days.

[Danny in Houston]

Just wanted to again say thinks for the thoughtful replies.   Great advice Dave.  I have made a few pieces in the past for an interior designer and it was torture.  Never again will I make a solid mahogany table with dark expresso stain.  
  I'm trying to define my signature style, and if it takes me a year or two that's OK.  My wife is a realtor specializing in the luxury home market, which is booming locally here, so I hope to leverage that with the big slab tables.

[Dave Diaman]

Danny, for what it's worth I think you have picked a good time to go into business. Right after the inauguration it was like a flood gate opened, at least around here. I have taken more orders in the last 2 months than I have in the last two years. Talking to friends I have in big shops it is the same story. They have all been working 7 days since the end of January. I only hope it lasts. Find yourself a good trade show to exhibit at if there is one in your area. When you go be sure to take some smaller items that are under $1500. I always take a bunch of small side tables, wall cupboards and similar items. Along with that take a few big high dollar items that really showcase your talent. I always try to take a few pieces with price tags well into the 5 figure range. All the small items are impulse purchases and they add up fast to a good pay day. I very rarely bring any of the small items home. They will pay for the show and make it worth your time even if you don't get any follow on work. That being said almost every small piece I have sold lead to follow on work. A business card is great but nothing is better at reminding people about the quality of your work than a piece of furniture they enjoy seeing every day.  I occasionally sell one of the big pieces but I don't count on it. I usually try to schedule the delivery of a few high dollar pieces with the show. After the first day of the show I slap a sold tag on them with an order yours today tag. When people see almost everything in your booth is sold it must mean you are an in demand craftsman right. I'm sure you will come up with your own formula once you start building and selling but these are a few things that have always worked for me.

[Harold O.]

...what David said...

Sounds like you have a solid idea on what you want to do and what your market is. While I can't even imagine making/marketing what DD makes, my market now knows where/who I am and are responding in ways not dreamed of just a few years ago. What makes that happen? I do not know. But I do know what sells by me and thats what I work to exploit because the work makes be happy. Ultimately, that is the endgame.

PS, hey DD, fantastic work. I dream of one day doing something beyond plywood boxes.